50 Fun Facts About Hyena

How many living hyena species are there?

Spotted, striped, brown and the aardwolf, each in its own genus, making Hyaenidae one of the smallest mammal families.

Hyenas are more closely related to which animals, despite looking dog-like?

They are feliforms; their dog-like build and hunting style are convergent evolution.

Which of the four hyena species is the odd one out, being an insect-eater?

It laps up termites with a long, broad tongue and is the last survivor of the ancient dog-like hyena lineage.

How many termites can the insect-eating hyena species lap up in a single outing?

Its ability to digest the toxic terpenes of soldier termites is a leftover of ancestors that ate fetid carrion.

What does the name of the termite-eating hyena mean in Afrikaans and Dutch?

It is also called maanhaarjakkals, 'mane-jackal', and the termite-eating hyena.

In spotted hyena society, which sex is larger and dominant?

Even a low-ranking female usually outranks the highest-ranking male, and cubs inherit their mother's rank.

What is unusual about the female spotted hyena's anatomy?

The clitoris forms a 'pseudo-penis' through which she urinates, mates and gives birth, which fed the ancient hermaphrodite myth.

Roughly what share of the animals a spotted hyena eats has it killed itself, rather than scavenged?

It is an active pack hunter of medium and large ungulates, wearing them down in long chases.

A spotted hyena community is called what?

Clans can reach 80 animals and are fission-fusion societies, more compact than wolf packs but looser than wild dog packs.

The spotted hyena's social organisation most closely resembles that of which other animals?

It has the largest group sizes and most complex social behaviour of any carnivore.

How are spotted hyena cubs unusual at birth among carnivorous mammals?

They attack each other almost immediately; sibling fights kill an estimated 25% of hyenas in their first month.

What share of spotted hyenas are estimated to die of neonatal siblicide in their first month?

It is worst in same-sex litters; surviving male cubs grow faster and are likelier to gain reproductive dominance.

How long is a spotted hyena's average gestation?

Dominant mothers dose their unborn cubs with extra androgens, which makes them more aggressive.

In a cooperative rope-pulling test, spotted hyenas outperformed which animals?

Captive pairs learned to tug two ropes in unison without training, and experienced hyenas even helped novices.

Which large reptile has been observed hunting adult spotted hyenas?

Hyenas keep their distance from crocodile waters, but they had not been thought to be python prey.

Spotted hyenas are among the few mammals besides bats known to survive infection with which disease?

High concentrations of antibodies in their saliva may explain it.

Where did hyenas originate 22 million years ago?

The earliest known, Plioviverrops, was a lithe, civet-like animal.

Which was the only hyena ever to reach North America?

It survived there by evolving into a cheetah-like sprinter, avoiding the niches canids already held.

The extinct 110 kg mega-scavenger Pachycrocuta could splinter the bones of which animals?

By 5 million years ago the bone-crushing hyenas dominated Eurasia's carcasses, mostly kills left by sabre-toothed cats.

How do hyenas mark their territories, unlike dogs?

The white, creamy paste smells like boiling cheap soap or burning and can be detected by humans several metres downwind.

What do striped and brown hyenas do when attacked by lions or dogs?

The spotted hyena, by contrast, defends itself ferociously.

Which hyena species is the rarest, with 4,000 to 10,000 left?

Also called the strandwolf, it is persecuted by farmers who wrongly assume it kills livestock it is only scavenging.

How is the spotted hyena classified by the IUCN?

Between 27,000 and 47,000 survive, though numbers are falling outside protected areas.

The striped hyena's range extends across the Middle East, Central Asia and which subcontinent?

It is Near Threatened and features in Middle Eastern folklore as a symbol of treachery.

Both spotted and striped hyenas have been recorded killing dogs how?

Their jaws are strongest at the canines and premolars, the teeth they use to crack bone.

Which animal is proportionately a stronger biter than the spotted hyena?

The spotted hyena's bite is famous, but several animals beat it pound for pound.

What makes up the striped hyena's limited vocal repertoire?

The spotted hyena produces whoops, grunts, groans, giggles, yells, growls, laughs and whines.

What does the pitch of a spotted hyena's laugh indicate?

High-pitched calls signal fear or submission; loud, low ones express aggression.

In Tabwa mythology of East Africa, the spotted hyena is a solar animal that did what?

West African folklore is far less flattering, casting the hyena as immoral and dirty.

In Tanzania, witches are traditionally believed to use spotted hyenas as what?

In the Mtwara Region a child born while a hyena cries is expected to become a thief.

The mythical African Bouda tribe were said to be able to do what?

Such 'werehyenas' are killed when discovered and do not revert to human form in death.

In which Ethiopian city do inhabitants regularly feed spotted hyenas, believing they keep devils away?

The 'hyena men' hand-feed them each night; locals also credit hyenas with fortune-telling.

In the Near and Middle East, striped hyenas are traditionally regarded as incarnations of what?

Al-Damiri wrote in 1406 that they were vampiric and attacked only brave people.

A 1376 Persian medical treatise gives cures for cannibalistic 'kaftar', described as what?

Arab folklore also held that hyenas could mesmerise victims with their eyes.

In modern Hebrew, the word for hyena, 'tsavua', is identical to the word for what?

The King James Bible rendered 'ayit tsavua' in Jeremiah 12:9 as 'speckled bird', though it was probably a hyena.

Which ancient Greek philosopher first branded the hyena as cowardly and necrophagous?

He at least rejected the belief that hyenas were hermaphrodites, though he thought they lured dogs by retching.

Shakespeare compares laughter to a 'hyen' in Act IV of which comedy?

It also turns up in Webster's Duchess of Malfi (1623).

Human hair has been found in fossilised hyena dung dating back roughly how far?

Some palaeontologists think cave hyenas delayed humans crossing into Alaska.

A pair of man-eating hyenas that killed 27 people in 1962 were shot in which country?

They weighed 72 and 77 kg; attacks there peak in September when people sleep outdoors.

Which US president recorded that hyenas in Uganda regularly killed sleeping-sickness sufferers?

He wrote it during his 1908-1909 African safari.

After The Lion King's release, what did one hyena researcher do?

Another, who had arranged the animators' visit to a Berkeley research station to sketch hyenas, called for a boycott.

Who voiced Shenzi, leader of the hyena trio in the 1994 Lion King?

Cheech Marin voiced Banzai and Jim Cummings the giggling Ed; in an early draft they were African wild dogs.

In the original draft of The Lion King, Scar's minions were what animals?

They were switched to hyenas, probably to reflect the real-life rivalry between lions and hyenas.

Which Ernest Hemingway book joins The Lion King in painting hyenas as gluttonous and stupid?

The 20th century saw Western and African stereotypes of the animal converge.

Where do the oldest known depictions of the spotted hyena, from the Upper Palaeolithic, appear?

Cave hyenas roamed Eurasia for at least a million years before vanishing at the end of the Ice Age.

What does the spotted hyena's genus name Crocuta actually derive from?

The 'saffron-coloured one' story was long repeated but is wrong; the correct spelling would have been Crocata.

Hyenas other than the spotted one have striped coats inherited from which ancestors?

The others likely inherited their striped coats from viverrid ancestors.

How do hyenas of every species differ from dogs in feeding their young?

Male spotted hyenas play no part in rearing cubs, though male striped hyenas do.

How many entrances can a spotted hyena den have?

Tunnels narrow from up to a metre wide at the entrance to as little as 25 cm.

Which two prey animals do spotted hyenas significantly avoid?

They prefer prey between 56 and 182 kg and target the young and old, though old zebras fight back too well.